Doctors working inside the Gaza Strip tell their stories of survival.
2023-11-13 NEW YORK TIMES
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[INDISTINCT CHATTERS]Sabrina Tavernise
From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. And this is “The Daily.”Speaker 1
They broke the door of the hospital. They bombed thousands of people around, thousands of people, thousands.Sabrina Tavernise
As Israel’s war on Hamas enters its sixth week, hospitals in Gaza have found themselves on the front lines. They are a refuge for growing numbers of civilians fleeing the violence. But one that has become increasingly dangerous as Israel’s military targets what it says are Hamas fighters hiding inside of them and beneath them.
Israel’s bombing campaign has become one of the most intense in the 21st century. Gazan health officials say the death toll now stands at more than 11,000 people, higher than all previous wars between Israel and Hamas combined. At the center of it all are doctors.Speaker 2
Hello.Sabrina Tavernise
Hi. Dr. Ahmed, this is Sabrina Tavernise from “The New York Times.” Hello Dr. Marwan Abusada?Speaker 3
Ah, yes, yes, please.Sabrina Tavernise
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]Sabrina Tavernise
“The Daily” has spent the past several weeks calling doctors all over the Gaza Strip, asking them what the war looks like from inside their hospitals.Speaker 4
The attacks are continuous. They bombed a building, and then we get a gush of casualties coming, at least 40 or 50 at one time.Speaker 5
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] You hear the bombing now? You hear the bombing?Sabrina Tavernise
Yes, I do.Sabrina Tavernise
How they are working.Suhaib Alhamss
We work hard. We work more than 18 hours per day.Sabrina Tavernise
How they are living.Sabrina Tavernise
Where are you sleeping? Are you going home?Suhaib Alhamss
In the hospital. Sometimes in the office. Sometimes in the OR.Sabrina Tavernise
And what they are doing to keep up with the flood of patients.Suhaib Alhamss
I will show you just for one minute with the camera to see how many patients are waiting in the waiting room, just one minute, please.Sabrina Tavernise
OK.Suhaib Alhamss
Yeah.Sabrina Tavernise
Oh, my goodness.Suhaib Alhamss
You see?Sabrina Tavernise
I see so many patients.Sabrina Tavernise
Now, how many pictures as Israel’s military moves deeper into Gaza City, the war is pushing hospitals to the brink of collapse.Suhaib Alhamss
Its catastrophic situation, madam. You have to watch by yourself to see what I talk about.Sabrina Tavernise
Today, three doctors on survival in Gaza.Speaker 6
He’s actually operating at the moment. Would you be able to call back in half an hour?Sabrina Tavernise
Of course. Of course. So you need to go to a surgery right now?Speaker 6
Yeah. Yes, I must go. Excuse me. YeahSabrina Tavernise
OK. Thank you. It’s Monday, November 13.
[PHONE RINGS]Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Hello.Jessica Cheung
Hello, Dr. Abu-Sittah?Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Yes, speaking.Sabrina Tavernise
A few weeks ago, my colleague Jessica Cheung called Dr. Ghassan Abu-sitta, a British Palestinian plastic surgeon.Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Hi, how are you?Jessica Cheung
I’m good. How are you doing?Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Exhausted. But otherwise intact.Jessica Cheung
Can you tell me a little bit about where you are right now?Ghassan Abu-Sittah
I’m in the operating room of Shifa Hospital.Jessica Cheung
It sounds like a child is in pain.Ghassan Abu-Sittah
She needs an amputation, part of her shot. She’s six, taken from underneath the rubble.
[CHILD CRYING]Jessica Cheung
How many patients are at the hospital right now?Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Around 1,600 to 1,700. But the hospital capacity is 600. So you can only imagine.Sabrina Tavernise
The day she reached him, he was working at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip. Israel’s army had not invaded Gaza yet, but its airstrikes had driven many from their homes. And Shifa had become a kind of refuge. Around 60,000 people were living there.Ghassan Abu-Sittah
If you walk through the hospital, it’s turned into a tented city. On the floors at the entrance, there are families sitting. There are patients on the corridors, patients on mattresses in the floors of the — patients on trolleys, there are patients in the emergency room. It’s just — it’s surreal. It’s surreal how awful it is.
Across the hallway from my operating room door, there is a whole three generational family, grandmother, and parents, and siblings. And they have a little girl whose oxygen dependent. She’s like four and needs continuous oxygen. So they’re sitting next to an electric socket on the floor. There are some patients on mattresses with their injuries. It’s miserably grim. And the smell, it’s a public health catastrophe waiting to happen. This is cholera or typhus waiting to happen.Jessica Cheung
Um-hmm. And are you sleeping in the hospital?Ghassan Abu-Sittah
In the operating room. Each operating room has a small area called recovery, where we put patients right after the surgery just to monitor them until the anesthetic wears out. And that recovery area is where I sleep.Jessica Cheung
Are colleagues, they’re also sleeping there?Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Everybody’s sleeping here. And some people have brought their families.Jessica Cheung
And where are they sleeping?Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Every available office, cupboard, storage room, corridor, whatever you can imagine.Jessica Cheung
And how many patients have you been able to see today? What have you done today?Ghassan Abu-Sittah
I’ve just been operating all day. So burns, we brought in major burns patients. So patients with over 40 percent burns. We had a mother, her 11-year-old son, who has full thickness burns to his face and his arms. We had a mother with burns to her legs and to his arms.
We had a seven-month-old with burns to his legs and arms. But we also had this child with facial burns yesterday, who doesn’t look like he’s going to do well.Jessica Cheung
What happened to him?Ghassan Abu-Sittah
He’s got over 60 percent burns. Burns to his face, to his hands, to his legs. He’s 13, 12, 13. He was just whimpering.Jessica Cheung
Whimpering. Do you try to calm them? Do you try to talk them through?Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.Jessica Cheung
What do you usually say to them?Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Everything is going to be all right even though it’s not going to be all right. You tell them that once the surgery is done, their parents will give them the best meal that they like or get them some ice cream or whatever.
But these kids have been pulled from underneath the rubble. A lot of them have seen family being killed.
There’s very little that effectively you can say to them. And they’re absolutely petrified.
This six-year-old girl needs an amputation to her foot. We’ll be taking her next to the operating room. It’s just been like that.
This is carnage on an unfathomable scale.
I need to go. I need to go because the dad of the girl is here, and we need to tell him that we need to do the amputation.Jessica Cheung
Absolutely Thank you.Ghassan Abu-Sittah
So I need to go.Jessica Cheung
OK, good luck.Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Thank you.
[MUSIC PLAYING]Sabrina Tavernise
The day after we talked to Dr. Abu-Sitta, on Friday, October 27, all communications to Gaza were cut. No phone, no internet. It was about two days before we could reach anyone again. When we did, it had become clear that Israel had launched a ground invasion into Gaza. And the doctors we spoke to told us it felt like the war was getting even closer.Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Last night was horrendous. The bombing was just and very close.Sabrina Tavernise
And it was.Sabrina Tavernise
Are you worried about the Israeli military coming inside Gaza? There are forces coming closer to Gaza City now.Speaker 6
This is actually awful. We don’t want this to happen.Sabrina Tavernise
10 days ago, an Israeli airstrike hit an ambulance near the entrance of Shifa Hospital. Then on Friday, the courtyard inside the hospital complex was hit.
[EXPLOSION]
[PEOPLE SCREAMING]
Israel maintains that the hospital conceals a major Hamas military compound, including passageways hidden underneath. It says the ambulance had hit, it was being used to transport Hamas fighters. It also said that Hamas is hoarding fuel. Hamas has denied all of this. When we asked doctors about it, some said it wasn’t true.Ghassan Abu-Sittah
I mean, for me, it’s just a narrative to justify targeting the hospital. I mean, think about it is that under international law, it’s still a crime to attack a hospital regardless of who you say is underneath the ground.Sabrina Tavernise
Others said they didn’t know.Ebraheem Matar
I only deal with patients. I don’t know.Sabrina Tavernise
All they knew was their reality in this war.
That their corridors were filling up even more with wounded and dying people.Speaker 7
The sick children now, they don’t have clean water to drink. I received like water with yellow color.Sabrina Tavernise
Just as their supplies were running out.Ebraheem Matar
Some patients may die because of infection in the wound. Why there is infection in the wound? Because there is lack of antibiotics.Sabrina Tavernise
They were running out of disinfectant and were resorting to what they had on hand.Ebraheem Matar
One of the scenes I have witnessed is seeing chloride using in the wiping the floors or wiping the windows. We use it for the cleaning of wound infections. Other example I have seen, nurses and doctors using vinegar to treat wound infections. And I am sure it is not enough. It will not treat anything.Sabrina Tavernise
They said they were running out of medicine to operate on people.Speaker 8
MSF released a photo. It was an amputation of the foot of a little boy on the ground with no general anesthesia. So he was just given some sedative to fall asleep. Part of what we do as doctors is relieve suffering. And if you can’t treat patients with pain control, it’s —
I mean, it’s intolerable.Sabrina Tavernise
They started rationing everything, particularly fuel to run the generators. So many turned off the lights in their hospitals.Ghassan Abu-Sittah
The wards are dark. The corridors are dark. The communal areas, the lobby, the stairwells, they’re dark. And so it’s a nightmare because you don’t know who you’re stepping on while you’re walking.Sabrina Tavernise
Some said they were even operating on people using their phone flashlights.Sabrina Tavernise
Do you use light from your phone? How do you see?Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Yeah, yeah. That’s basically it. That’s the trick. You use light from your phone.Sabrina Tavernise
And they worried about how much time they had left.Ghassan Abu-Sittah
A hospital without fuel, this hospital without fuel and electricity will turn from a hospital into a mass grave.Suhaib Alhamss
I’m trying to find fuel for ambulances and electricity.Sabrina Tavernise
And some of those we talked to were spending much of their days trying to find fuel themselves, including Dr. Suhaib Al-hamss, the general director of the Kuwaiti Specialist Hospital in Rafart in the South of Gaza.Suhaib Alhamss
I spent my days since 6:00 AM trying to call everyone, call the Norway, call international — I call the minister of health. I called — I’m trying to find other hospitals if they can help me. I will stop my service here. The patients will die.Sabrina Tavernise
How many calls did you make about fuel today for your hospital?Suhaib Alhamss
Lots of calls. Yes, that’s where I spent my day just looking for water, for food, for fuel for my medical staff here. We don’t have even a bread for the last two days for the medical staff.Sabrina Tavernise
You don’t have bread for the staff?Suhaib Alhamss
That’s what happened here. But we have no options. We cannot leave our patient. We cannot leave our hospital here.Sabrina Tavernise
And what about Hamas, doctor? You mentioned you’re calling the Ministry of Health. Does Hamas help you with fuel?Suhaib Alhamss
Madam, you cannot ask me about Hamas. I am a doctor. I am associate professor here. I am the head of surgery department in the faculty of medicine.Sabrina Tavernise
I understand.Suhaib Alhamss
You cannot ask me about Hamas, about Jihad, about — you should ask me the medical — you can ask Israel what they are doing here. They are killed lots of honest people. I won’t answer. Anyone, you ask me about the political situation here. You talk about humanity. You talk about catastrophic situation here in Gaza, madam.Sabrina Tavernise
One thing that we have heard, doctor —Suhaib Alhamss
You should deal with that. You should —Sabrina Tavernise
One thing that we have —Suhaib Alhamss
You should face that.Sabrina Tavernise
One thing that we have heard doctor is that there are reports that Hamas had been sitting on a stockpile of fuel in the underground tunnels. Is that something that you’ve heard about? Does that —Suhaib Alhamss
I didn’t hear about that. I hear from the Israeli occupation. I didn’t hear about that except from the Israeli occupation. You hear that lots of doctor of professors, consultants, and medical students were killed here. Do you hear about the ambulances that were destroyed by the Israeli occupation? Do you hear about the hospitals that were destroyed the patient?
Do you hear about the lots of children, and women, and pregnant women, and honest citizens that were killed by the Israeli occupation and the whole world the whole world that they call them the democracy, the democracy world just watch us? Nothing. Do nothing, just support Israel, support Israel. This is genocide here. I wonder how they can do this. They stole our life. They stole our life. We have dreams. We have children. We have our own dreams. They stole everything. They destroyed everything.Sabrina Tavernise
I can hear you’re angry.Suhaib Alhamss
I’m angry. I am exhausted. This is a bad dream. I hope I worked from it. Just today, we received about 12 children and women, pregnant women. Two of them are pregnant. Where is the hospital dead. They were killed.
And we tried — after they killed, we try to do cesarean section after they are killed, the ER, trying to save their babies. But we cannot do that. Unfortunately, the fetus was killed also. We tried to save it. We tried.Sabrina Tavernise
What was it like for you when you discovered you couldn’t save the babies inside the mothers?Suhaib Alhamss
Just I cried. The only thing I can do just to cry. Cry when I fall asleep, crying when I’m working. Just I cried. Nothing to be done for them. Nothing to be done. Nothing to be spoken. Of the children, one of them was nine year daughters. She lost her mother.
She lost all of her family. And she was shocked. She was shocked. No exhibition. Just was silent.
One of the nurses just stay with here until the morning. And after that, it went with one of her families, one of her cousin.
I hope that her cousin will take care of her.Sabrina Tavernise
As the days went on, the war was forcing doctors to make impossible choices, who would get treatment and who wouldn’t, who got anesthesia and who didn’t, which wounds got disinfectant and which did not. A number of doctors talked about making the most impossible choice of all, whom to save and whom to let die. One doctor told us that it felt as if he was deciding on the souls of people.
Doctors also said that they found themselves in a strange new role.Speaker 7
The hospital is full of children.Sabrina Tavernise
Looking after children.
– So they keep on like running beside me, following me. Please, we want to draw. Please take photo for us.Ebraheem Matar
Two days ago, we got a patient with no one of her family alive.Sabrina Tavernise
Lone survivors of bombings.Ebraheem Matar
She came alone. 11-year-old. She was disoriented. No one knows the name. And she was in the recovery with no beds. The general manager of the hospital called me and said, I know this is not your case, but please can you take care of this little girl? She has no one here.Sabrina Tavernise
One doctor said that for children who were too young to speak, the staff would write unknown in marker on their bodies.Suhaib Alhamss
Every day, we had a lot of cases like this. Lots of children lost their mothers, their fathers without families.Sabrina Tavernise
Some said their hospitals were starting to feel like orphanages with children wandering the halls, looking for parents who were no longer alive.Ebraheem Matar
Even there is a new medical term that we are having. It must be added to medical books. WCNSF.
Wounded Child, No Surviving Family.Sabrina Tavernise
Wounded Child, No Surviving Family, WCNSF.Ebraheem Matar
Yes. And it happens every hour. I have seen dozens or even hundreds of WCNSF.Sabrina Tavernise
Ebraheem Matar is a resident ICU doctor at Al-aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the middle of the Gaza Strip.Sabrina Tavernise
And what happens to these children? Where do they go? Who cares for them after they get better?Ebraheem Matar
Who cares for them, actually there is no answer for this question. We don’t even know their names sometimes. So who will care for them? So far, no one. I have seen two kids who are severely injured.
Those two kids do not know that their father and mother and all their siblings have died. They were unconscious at the time of the bombing. And now, they are conscious. They are receiving treatment. But simply, they do not know. And all the people around them did not tell them in order they are kids and they cannot handle the pain of the injury or the psychological pain of the grief.Sabrina Tavernise
How old are the kids?Ebraheem Matar
The first is 13-year-old female who is having a severe comminuted fracture. The other, her brother, is a 14-year-old who is having a severe head trauma and a brain hemorrhage. But now, they are both conscious and receiving treatment. And they do not know that their family, father, and mother, siblings, house, all are destroyed.
Just we tell them that, you are going to see them soon. Just in order not to make them feel sad. It is painful, hiding the truth. It is to some sort of deceiving. But sometimes, you may do things that are not appropriate at that moment and may be appropriate later.Sabrina Tavernise
Yeah. That must be so hard Dr. Matar.Ebraheem Matar
Yes, it is. Pain is too intense here.
This is an ambulance is coming.Sabrina Tavernise
Oh, what is that in the background?Ebraheem Matar
Now, it is a new casualty. And many paramedics are doing CPR. And it is for a child. Yes, it is for a child.Sabrina Tavernise
What are you looking at?Ebraheem Matar
Many paramedics are rushing the child into the emergency department, and they are doing CPR. It is a wounded child. And it seems there is no surviving family.Sabrina Tavernise
WCNSF.Ebraheem Matar
Yes.Sabrina Tavernise
How old is the child?Ebraheem Matar
It looks like 10 years old.Sabrina Tavernise
What’s happening now?Ebraheem Matar
People, doctors and paramedics in the hospital are speaking about a new bombing. And there is dozens of new casualties are in the —
some time, and they will reach the hospital. And new cases, we are now waiting new cases.Sabrina Tavernise
How are you feeling?Ebraheem Matar
I did not go home since the start of the conflict. So I feel tired emotionally, physically, mentally, and on all aspects. I did not see my family since 7 October.Sabrina Tavernise
Where is your family?Ebraheem Matar
They are in the North of Gaza Strip. They did not leave the North.Sabrina Tavernise
Are they OK?Ebraheem Matar
Thankfully, yes. They are OK. So far, I don’t know what is happening later. And I feel very anxious about them. And every time in the hospital, I think of them, and I hope they are fine.Sabrina Tavernise
Dr. Matar, is the child OK? What is happening with that child?Ebraheem Matar
I may enter the department and ask about them. Just give me a few seconds.Sabrina Tavernise
OK.Ebraheem Matar
Stay on the line.
[INDISTINCT CHATTERS]
Hello.Sabrina Tavernise
Hi.Ebraheem Matar
Yes, I’ve seen the kid. The one who is being brought by the ambulance.Sabrina Tavernise
Is he OK?Ebraheem Matar
No, he’s not OK. He’s having a severe head trauma. We could see the brain matter through the wound.Sabrina Tavernise
You could see his brain through the wound?Ebraheem Matar
She’s still alive. But she’s having what doctors say brain death. He’s unconscious. He’s having a large crack in his head. So we are now, as doctors in the ER department, are thinking of giving him assisted mechanical ventilation or not.
So the IC doctors in charge may not intubate him because they may think this is a hopeless case. Because if they did, there will no any good result. So this is now a situation of choosing between which cases will benefit from treatment or not.Sabrina Tavernise
Your colleagues are deciding whether to try to save him?Ebraheem Matar
Yes.Sabrina Tavernise
And that must be such a difficult choice.Ebraheem Matar
It is.Sabrina Tavernise
What is your biggest fear at this moment?Ebraheem Matar
In this conflict, the first thing is that I don’t want to die in cold blood. I am an innocent person. The second thing is I’m afraid on my family. I don’t want my family to get injured or to die. Because they are also innocent. We are afraid on our families more than we are afraid on ourselves. And we don’t just want to die in cold blood.Sabrina Tavernise
What do you mean we don’t want to die in cold blood?Ebraheem Matar
I mean that we are not targets. We are not targets. We, as normal civilian, humans, we need a ceasefire. We need the conflict to end and to have a normal life.
A normal life that includes staying safe at home, drinking clean water, seeing my friends, doing picnics, sleep in a calm room, sleep without the sounds of bombings, going to work, returning back from work, playing football or soccer with my friends, going to the beach.
Every day, I used to go there and smell a breeze of the beach and listen to the sounds of waves, listen to music. I missed listening to music. I’m a music lover. And I love poetry. I miss writing about love, about dreams. I was going to the gym before the conflict started. I miss going to the gym. Actually, the gym I go to has been destroyed today. I don’t know why. So I’m just going to the gym.Sabrina Tavernise
How old are you, Dr. Matar?Ebraheem Matar
I am 27 years old. I’m still a young doctor.Sabrina Tavernise
You are.Ebraheem Matar
Just I need normal life back.
Now, I can see the child who I told you about is being taken to the place of dead people.Sabrina Tavernise
You see the child being taken where?Ebraheem Matar
Into the place of dead people.Sabrina Tavernise
Oh. They took the child you told me about to the morgue?Ebraheem Matar
Yes. My friend who was working with him, he is giving me a sign that he’s dead.
It is sad. It is very sad.
Because a young child.Sabrina Tavernise
Yeah. A young child.
What is your friend doing now?Ebraheem Matar
He returned to the ER department to see new casualties. There is no time to get sad over every case.
Thank you for giving me the chance to listen to me.Sabrina Tavernise
Thank you for sharing yourself.Ebraheem Matar
You’re welcome, my friend. It’s my privilege. Good night and wish a good night for me also.Sabrina Tavernise
Be safe tonight.Ebraheem Matar
Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. I hope. Bye, bye.
[MUSIC PLAYING]Sabrina Tavernise
Over the weekend, Israeli tanks and troops were closing in on Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s Main Hospital, where Dr. Abu-Sitta had been working and where Israel claims that Hamas has a base. On Sunday, Israel said it was securing a route for civilians and patients to leave and claimed it had offered the hospital fuel to help keep it operating.
The tens of thousands of refugees who had taken shelter there have already fled. But many seriously wounded patients remain inside.Ghassan Abu-Sittah
We’ve lost all contact with Shifa. I have no idea what’s happening there.Sabrina Tavernise
Dr. Abu-Sitta has also left Shifa and is now working at a nearby hospital, one of the few in Gaza that is still accepting new patients.Ghassan Abu-Sittah
And we’ve run out of ketamine here. I’m having to do major, major wound dressing changes with nothing with the patients screaming. But because they’ve been so neglected, some of them are beginning to get infected and rot. The situation is so bleak. Everything is collapsed.Sabrina Tavernise
Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday that 23 out of the 35 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are no longer functioning.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Here’s what else you should know today. On Sunday, “The Times” reported that federal authorities are investigating whether New York City Mayor Eric Adams pressured the New York Fire Department to allow the opening of a Manhattan high rise housing the Turkish consulate general despite safety concerns with the building.
“The Times” cited three people with knowledge of the matter and said that the alleged pressure took place weeks before Adams’s election two years ago. The FBI is examining Adams’s intervention as part of a broader public corruption investigation that led to the seizure last week of the mayor’s electronic devices.
Today’s episode was produced by Lynsea Garrison, Rachelle Bongja, and Jessica Cheung.
It was edited by Lisa Chow and Liz O. Baylen with help from Ben Calhoun. Fact checked by Susan Lee and Rachelle Bonja. Contains original music by Rowan Niemisto Pat McCusker, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Special thanks to Taghreed El-Khodary, Neil Collier, Hwaida Saad, Raja Abdulrahim, and Vivian Yee. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.